6 December 2024

How to Beat China in the Quest for AI Dominance

Jack Burnham 

In August 2023, the Biden administration restricted investments in countries of concern and cracked down on illegal trade to stop U.S. emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) from bleeding at the hands of foreign adversaries. However, an attempted hack of OpenAI by the Chinese-based hacker group SweetSpecter last month indicates that the incoming Trump administration will need to reinforce and expand efforts to ensure the United States wins the AI race.

AI will be “a crucial component of economic and military power in the near future,” Stanford University’s AI research center succinctly stated in its 2023 AI index report. AI tops both the White House’s list and the Defense Department’s list of critical and emerging technologies necessary for U.S. national security. China, likewise, recognizes AI as one of the “future industries” that will power its economy.

Today, China exports AI technology to nearly twice as many countries as the United States, focusing on autocracies and weak democracies. In doing so, China will spread its ideology and facilitate the adoption of techno-authoritarian practices, enabling state control over its population and undermining democracy around the world. Likewise, China has begun exporting facial-recognition AI—technology it uses to support its own surveillance state. Beijing’s authoritarian-minded partners also want to use that technology to control their populations in the face of historic unrest and low economic performance.

While most assessments place the United States ahead in the AI race due to its superior workforce and data processing infrastructure, China could quickly close the gap through well-manufactured, well-executed, and state-sponsored intellectual property theft. Indeed, SweetSpecter’s attempted hack of OpenAI is no surprise, given China’s long history of cyber-enabled economic warfare to steal strategically valuable commercial technology.

Cyber theft allows China to leapfrog U.S. innovation and circumvent market competition despite its own deficient research and development capabilities. In a dramatic case uncovered two years ago, Chinese state-backed hackers stole up to trillions of dollars worth of intellectual property on pharmaceuticals, solar panels, advanced manufacturing, and cutting-edge technologies in a years-long campaign. In the case of AI, successful cyber-enabled economic warfare will propel China forward to dominate this emerging technology.

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